Your Thoughts on Feral Cats

don45640 · Mar 28, 2013

Down here in Southern Ohio,they're pretty much a plague.

The coyotes HAD been keeping the numbers down `til recently. I have a friend from Portsmouth ,Ohio,and he said they are out of control. Living in town,he can't kill them with any gun but an airgun.
He had given me a Crosman 1400 22 cal. airgun,for free:cool2:,since I told him that I had an old 140 Crosman which was the forerunner to the 1400,and he saw how much I loved that old gun.
I told him I would loan him the gun back,that the sights were dead on,and he could work on the cat problem.He said he might need to do that.
It shoots really hard and will definitely kill the feral cats. don-ohio

^)

QRTRHRS · Mar 28, 2013

Repeating what I have stated before, it should be mandatory to nueter and spay cats and dogs. Anyone wanting to breed them should have to have a license. Too many people letting their animals run free along with back yard breeders that just want to make a fast buck and don't care after that. Same goes for horses too!

Both my stallions have passed on now but when I used to offer breeding, I would turn down people that just wanted to experiance having a foal and had no idea what they were doing.

FWIW, I agree most feral cats don't domesticate well but I have one that did, She had kittens in the barn so which we caught and used to bait her. She bloodied her nose trying to get out of my have a heart trap. Took a long time and alot of patience but she is now my "garage" cat.

I always have the trap set in the barn to catch possums because they have the potential to carry the old age protozoan that causes EPM in horses. The occasional cat I trap gets "fixed" and released. The possums get drowned.

Lastly, I think it should be a moving violation to dump an animal along the road. We get plenty of that too.

/pine · Mar 28, 2013

TomSeller said:
Actually the best cereal cats...

like Tony the Tiger ?

vwnotrunning · Mar 28, 2013

When they are fighters or sprayers I find a way of eliminating them. Initially just being unpleasant and they usually find other places to visit. Persistent problem cats get eliminated by what ever means as required. My wife will catch and have them fixed (I don't want to know how much we have spent on fixing others cats!). We always have cats around. We let our chickens run around free and the cats all leave them alone. The cats give them an eye every now and then, but the chickens stand there ground. The cats are getting lazy, starting to see the tree rats getting closer again! (I hate tree rats)

Wooddust · Mar 28, 2013

Feral cats are an invasive non native specie. These people who are trapping, spaying and releasing them have no regard for the impact on birds and the environment. Every stray feral cat in my sphere of influence is a target.

JakeBrake · Mar 28, 2013

I have two formerly feral cats that have adopted me.

Last year a feral cat had a litter in our cellar while we were gone for a few days. When we came back home mother cat and two kittens took off. I have not seen them again. She left two kittens in the cellar. These two would have starved if I had not fed them in the cellar. They would hide when I entered the cellar. I worked with them for a couple of months before I could handle them. Eventually, I was able to catch them and have them neutered (they are both toms) and vaccinated. The spay/neuter clinic said that five months was the ideal age to spay/neuter cats. So that's when I took them in.

They have grown into rather large cats. The two are inseparable. They are strictly outside cats. I feed them in the cellar which provides a warm, dry shelter. So far they have caught many mice and moles and one squirrel. I'm overrun with squirrels. I'm hoping they will catch more. When I go outside, they come running to me.

CliffordK · Mar 29, 2013

Many rats and mice are also non-native species, and followed the human migration around the world.

I don't have any hay at the moment, but a couple of barn cats, within reason, is not a bad idea. Perhaps they would help with the explosion of moles that I'm experiencing. Where is a good gopher snake when one needs it?

Anyway, keep a couple of barn cats.
If you can catch them, take them in for a one-time spaying/neutering & vaccination.

If you have birdhouses, mount them high. It also works good to slip a piece of aluminum gutter over a 2x4, and attach the whole thing to a post.

DieselnHooters · Mar 29, 2013

Wooddust said:
Feral cats are an invasive non native specie..

so are you

2LaneCruzer · Mar 29, 2013

vwnotrunning said:
When they are fighters or sprayers I find a way of eliminating them. Initially just being unpleasant and they usually find other places to visit. Persistent problem cats get eliminated by what ever means as required. My wife will catch and have them fixed (I don't want to know how much we have spent on fixing others cats!). We always have cats around. We let our chickens run around free and the cats all leave them alone. The cats give them an eye every now and then, but the chickens stand there ground. The cats are getting lazy, starting to see the tree rats getting closer again! (I hate tree rats)

I have a lot of wild turkeys venture in the yard from time to time; this one cat will stalk them, and the turkeys mostly ignore it. I was watching them one morning, and the cat got too close and much to the surprise of the cat, about 3 old hens rushed him and he took off for tall timber. The turkeys went back to their business of fertilizing and clearing the back yard of bugs and bird seed.